Three Sisters, Lyric Hammersmith ****

Irina, Masha and Olga are trapped in their small-town provincial existence, dreaming of a return to Moscow - a place which holds the promise of escape, love and life. Ultimately everyone must come to accept their lot and live the life they have been struggling against: Andrei rails against the small-minded town folk who think that working for the local authority is the pinnacle of one’s career and then boasts when he is appointed to such a post, and Irina is horrified by the thought of marrying Baron Tuzenbach instead of finding love in Moscow but then finally succumbs to the idea.

Nothing happens in this play; the sisters never make it to Moscow, Masha’s love affair comes to nothing and she returns to her husband and, although Irina is willing to marry someone she doesn’t love for the chance of escape it offers, she must abandon her plans when her fiancé is killed in a duel. It is precisely this lack of movement and plot development which makes Chekhov’s play a masterpiece in human observation. In laying bare the dreams and desires which make us human, the inevitable failures and weakening of the individual will to act, this play questions how successful we are as agents of our own destiny. The sisters are initially strong and self-determining, Irina will go to work and be useful and Masha will love Vershinin despite being unhappily married, but by the end of the play all three accept their unhappy lot, pronouncing that their fate is ‘in God’s hands’.

In this new and innovative version by Christopher Hampton at The Lyric, Hammersmith, Chekhov’s Three Sisters is brought up-to-date and made relevant to a modern audience through an inspired use of sound and staging. The open and unadorned set reaches across the wide expanse of the stage, the lighting, sound-system and wings are all in view. This lends to the action an air of unconstrained freedom; the mismatched furniture and chaotic movement makes the family’s lifestyle appear bohemian but the three-bar fires and their unhomely, unhoused condition hints at poverty. Strategically placed microphones amplify sound so that everyday noise becomes strange and disarming. The boiling of a kettle starts at a low rumble but reaches an unearthly and apocalyptic crescendo until it switches off and the audience realise that nothing has happened except that the tea is now ready to be made. Although gimmicky, this sonic manipulation does help to compound the prevailing atmosphere of tension and unease but is also witty and fun like much of the dialogue.

Despite the predictable Russian doom and gloom, this play is funny not least because of the excellent comic performances by Clare Dunne as Irina and Gemma Saunders as Andrei’s soppy but malevolent wife, Natasha. Romola Garai is excellent as Masha, her caustic wit and depressive loafing suggestive of the fact that she is the only sister to have given up hope a long time ago. While the others quarrel as to whether society will see improvement and intellectual advancement or fixity and meaninglessness, Masha believes in faith and meaning but when, at the end of the play, she reiterates the line she first spoke in good humour, ‘and round the oak a golden chain…and round the oak a golden chain…’, it is apparent that she is descending into nonsense and madness in the reiteration of this haunting image of imprisonment.

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